Catapult into the digital age

...with Hermès’ 8 Ties collection

What is it they say about teaching an old dog new tricks? French heritage brand Hermès shows it might actually be possible. The luxury company may have turned 175 last year and, for regular visitors to the 24 Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré store, things may seem almost frozen in time (including the cavalryman on the roof waving scarves for flags), but Hermès is keen to dispel any notion that it’s slow and stubborn by demonstrating a readiness and capacity to innovate.

And the best way to ensure that tradition lives on is to make it come alive. Hermès’ men’s creative director Véronique Nichanian has been quoted saying that for her, modernity is about mixing tradition with innovation. And a sense of high-fashion playfulness, evident in everything from the brand’s online retail experience to its quirky apps – even “A Sporting Life”, the brand’s 2013 theme that covered influences from horse riding and pétanque to the less predictable poker and gastronomy. “A sense of humour is important. We play with little things like the back of a beautiful traditional tie, where you’ll suddenly see an unexpected design element,” says Christophe Goineau, head of Hermès’ men’s silks division.

Even the Hermès tie, that icon of traditional luxury, has been blasted into the digital age. The brand’s latest neckwear collection, 8 Ties, taps into symbols that have become inextricably linked to the 21st century. Power buttons, USBs, cable jacks and binary signs have been abstracted and designed into distinctly Hermès repeating patterns, hand-cut and stitched into a heavy twill silk.

We caught up with Goineau to talk about what’s changed – and what’s stayed the same – at his division and why male customers are no longer the same.

How has the male consumer changed since you first joined Hermès? There’s been a huge change – men are making their own choices, taking better care of themselves and becoming smarter. They know exactly what they want.

How did the whole play on digital technology come about with the 8 Ties series? For a year-and-a-half now, I’ve been toying with the idea of creating something unique with our ties. There are essentially four elements you can play around with: design, material, colour and shape. We first reduced the width to 8cm, then changed the material to something between regular twill and heavy silk. But with design I wanted to do something different. Hermès has traditionally always used prints that represent elements from everyday life, like stirrups, sailboats and horse carriages – but that’s not as representative of contemporary living. Today, technology probably plays the largest role in our lives so I looked at really simple icons – the design of the on and off key on the computer, the USB icon. But I wanted to design them the Hermès way, as small prints repeated with a rhythm. At first they look like classic Hermès ties. But look at them from up close and you realize they’re not. Also, the playfulness persists – on the back of the ties you have a little pocket for a USB drive, for instance.

Has technology changed the way you source design? Yes, often. Two-and-a-half years ago, we ran a contest on a digital magazine called design boom to source new designs for Hermès ties. As a result, I’m now connected to a whole new set of artists all around the world.

How often do you change the designs on men’s silks? We have a rule that we change our designs every six months. It’s very rare for us to repeat a design – perhaps only when it’s so fabulous that it’s a shame not to repeat it. In a season, on average, we do about 500 to 600 new designs.

Has technology affected the process? Made it simpler, perhaps? We have been making ties for 60 years, and scarves for 80, so it may seem like we’ve been doing the same thing for decades, but things are changing. Technology is ensuring that materials get better and more durable. We have started experimenting with inkjet printing – something we never did before. We love prints and we love colours, and this procedure allows an infinite number of colours to be used.

Are young male consumers buying ties? Younger consumers between 20-30 years old are very much still buying ties. But their buying patterns are different from the older generation: They know they’re not compelled to buy or wear ties. Older men were more or less obliged to wear them so they’d pick them up by the dozen. Younger men, on the other hand, wear them for pleasure, and this change brings fresh thinking.

ART THAT MOVES (WITH) YOU “8 Ties”, an interactive sensory art installation accompanying the collection, is making its way to the Hermès store in Mumbai. Mexican born French digital art pioneer Miguel Chevalier has integrated the brand’s designs into a virtual reality wall projection that reacts to viewer movement by setting off a generative music soundtrack by composer Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi, as well as animated patterns that represent playing cards, pétanque balls or table football players. There’s also a virtual book, the pages of which reveal tie designs accompanied by a multilingual lexical background of the sporting and epicurean terms evoked by each design.

Open to all, “8 Ties” is showing at the Hermès store, 15 A Horniman Circle, Fort, Mumbai from December 6-8, 10.30 am–7.30 pm